Monster High - Maul Monsteristas 5 pack

Stock picture, because I don't have the box.

Right so... let's get right to it.

The infamous and illusive Maul Monsteristas 5 pack.



Now, word of this set leaked waaaaay back in April 2015, and of course people were pretty excited. A 5 pack with Billy? A Draculaura who looked to have pink hair? A Gigi is a maxi dress? Awesome!

Time passed... no sign of the set.

In the US Target listed the set up, and then a few weeks later removed the listing having never gotten any stock.

Finally word came, they'd appeared... in Mexico.

Mexico, where franchises go to die. (no offense Mexico), it's where a lot of failed lines last gasp releases skulk off to, which means they've had some awesome final releases the rest of the world never saw but it didn't bode well for this set that it had been shipped to Mexico and apparently ONLY Mexico.

Months dragged on. A new Argos catalogue came out. Oh! maybe they'd have it! they did after all get the last target exclusive 5 pack (the disembodied council set) but.. nope.. instead they just dropped the price of that pack yet again in another bid to finally be rid of it.
*sigh*

But then more news. Toys R Us CANADA had listed the set up on their website for a whopping $80, but Tru Canada wouldn't ship worldwide.

I contacted Mattel asking if the set was ever going to get a US or UK release and they told me "it was released in the US in fall!" uh.. no it wasn't. When further pressed they told me there was no indication of any orders for it, and it was no longer being offered to stores anyway.
ARGH

Nothing for it, I needed a Mexican or a Canadian.

I put out the call on facebook and it was answered by a very lovely Heather who agreed to pick me up a set. The set had just gone on sale at tru for $49:98 so it was now or never as far as I was concerned.

We looked into shipping but it worked out that shipping that enormous box was going to bump shipping up to rather eye watering levels, so we opted to debox.

All in, worked out about £50. Gotta love those exchange rates. Bargain for a 5 pack and far easier to swallow than the £80+ asked on Ebay.

Anyhoo, i'm sure you're bored of my rambling at this point, so let's get to it shall we?

DOLLS!

The seller very kindly included the inner card from the box, which has all the cute photo booth pictures haha. It's great.

Here's the stock picture just to compare. Looking pretty darn close.

Worth noting, this set doesn't come with stands. Multipacks tend not to these days.
I need to dig out my spares.

Biggest difference from promo to production? Billy. He's transparent in promos, but he's actually clear blue in reality.

I decided to start with them in the order they're presented in their artwork.

Which btw is amazingly adorable. They're a strange bunch to be hanging out though. I like to imagine Billy was at the maul looking for a present for Scarah and the two groups of ghouls kinda descended on him and insisted on "helping" lol.

Looks like they're having a grand time though.

And the photos from the booth crack me up. Note how Draculaura doesn't show up in the photos but her clothing and glasses do? such a funny touch.

So, going by the pictures, let's start with Draculaura:

Draculaura:

First thing that strikes you when you get her out of the box is the PINK of her hair. It's SO PINK and there's so much of it! Usually Draculaura has mostly black hair with some pink streaks, even when she has more pink there's still chunky black bits breaking it up. Here it's a soft muted pink that's rather different to her usual bright pink too, and there's only a little black underneath.

Her hair is rather prone to flyaways, I think it's kanekellon. It's super soft but really staticky.

It's long and choppily cut with the black layer slightly longer.

The black is sort of randomly shoved in the bottom layer, it's not a full layer of black but they aren't clear streaks either.

The front part of her hair is cut shorter to frame her face.

She has a plastic black bon on her head doing an absolutely rubbish job of keeping her hair out of her eyes. It's elastic banded like hell to her head though, so i'm not trying to remove it.

She has thin dark brown eyebrows and narrower eyes than some of her more recent dolls. I like when Ula has narrower eyes, i think she looks really beautiful.
Her eyes are purple with a paler purple-pink section in the centre and she has this very striking but quite flat blue makeup around her eyes. ALL around her eyes. If it was a darker colour she'd look like a racoon.

she has lovely dark pink lips and a bright heart on one cheek as usual.

The QC on these sets is a bit all over the place I have to say. Ula came with her head shoved way down on her neck, so she had no neck. It pulled back up but I suspect there might be some issue with her neck knob. She also has one arm that doesn't like to bend. It's REALLY stiff and just pops out of the socket rather than bending at the elbow. It's quite annoying.

Draculaura wears a one shoulder dress featuring none other than Elissabat and the Vampire Heart (which is actually says in strange writing at the bottom).

It's a nicely made dress made of slightly stretchy fabric. The print is only on the front, the back of the dress is plain black. 

It's this image in fact. From Frights Camera Action.

It's really cute. I wonder how Elissabat feels having her face on her friend's boobs though... ahem.

Her shoes are standard MH heeled sneakers, we've seen these several times before but they look quite cute in this shade of fushia pink.

This Ula kinda looks older to me, and that's not just because I put signature Draculaura on Bunny Blanc's short body lol. She just has a more mature less wide eyed and innocent face. The pink I think also makes her look so different.

I'm a big fan of dolls with drastically different hair and makeup to their standard look, so this Draculaura is a dream come true. She's fabulous.

Oh yes, she has a bag. Well... looks like she has a bag. It has a dribbly skullette on.

It is however NOT a bag, it's just part of the packaging. A shame, as they did do card full bags in the Maul fashion pack all those years ago. They don't last long in play, but they are fun.

Invisibilly

Can you believe this is only the second doll this cutie has gotten? Poor Billy!

First thing that strikes you with this one? His body. It's CLEAR!

Original Invisibilly has a sort of blueish grey body with legs that fade to greenish blue, Maul Monsteristas Billy however has a body that is entirely made of semi opaque blue plastic.

It's like he stole a totally other doll's body!

I have to wonder why he isn't that strange greenish colour of original Billy's legs though heh, but Maul Billy's lower legs are actually not as clear as the rest of him. They fade out to be nearly solid coloured again, a strange sort of milky blue.

What is facinating about this body is that it shows exactly how the bodies are constructed. You can see every strut, every structural support.

It does unfortunately make him look like he has 6 nipples... or is that just me?

Such a different look for this boy.

And he's a cute boy. His long hair is slicked back with rather a lot of styling gel, but it actually works. It means you can really see his gorgeous face sculpt properly and there's no way his hair will stay slicked like this if you rinse it. It'll end up a puffy frizz mess like his signature doll lol.

Billy hasn't got his earrings in, which I find slightly disappointing. Billy's ears are moulded with an elongated lobe so he can have his "plugs" in, so they look a bit "off" without them imo. Also I think the plugs were quite cute ahem.
I might have to find him some earrings lol.

Unusual for a MH boy, he has full length PANTS. They're made of odd nylon feeling dark grey fabric. It's rustly... like.. ew. But it looks good.

And amazing boots.

His shirt is a bit trippy. It's fishnet mesh at the top and then this bright blue mismash of patterns. There's waves, zig zags, houndstooth, all sorts I couldn't name. It all mooshes together and kinda confuses the eye, which I think was the intention.

Spectra Vondergeist

oh Spectra... *swoon* This girl really is winning me over of late.

Her original doll I didn't really "Love" but I blame that mostly on her truly horrendous pink fairy outfit. She has such a mature face that just doesn't seem quite right for a "high school" teen but is SO gorgeous anyway.

She's had a few releases i've adored, but her best dolls IMO are the ones where she has differently coloured hair.

So Maul Monsterista's is a simple doll, her outfit is very simplistic but that hair.. oh gosh that hair!

It's this incredible rich plum colour, dark but vibrant and quite unlike any other MH doll I could find on my shelf.

It's got a reddish undertone and streaks of darker plum through it. And it's VERY thickly rooted.

I don't own many Spectras, but I always loved the dark lips and makeup on that white face.

You can see how different this Spectra's hair colour actually IS. It's a very reddish purple, maybe a cherry or wine colour? I LOVE it.

This Spectra was made in Indonesia, which I know matters to some people. See, Spectra has two face moulds. One more gaunt than the other. I believe the China mould is the super gaunt one so this girl has the softer face which I honestly kinda prefer. It makes her look slightly younger.

Her hair is honestly a little overthick, it doesn't seem to know where to sit.

She has purple eyebrows that kinda stand out against that very reddish hair. I feel like her brows should probably be a closer colour to her hair but eh.

Her eyes are narrowed with thick lashes and a very soft line of pale purple lids and then soft pink eyeshadow.
Her lips are a bright fushia pink that goes well with her hair, they're painting in that pouty manner I love on Spectras, slightly downcast with a large bottom lip.

Her dress is VERY plain. It's a simple shift dress with a chain pattern. It has a sweetheart neckline and fabric "chain" straps.

It's simple, but it's cute. It does however scream "budget" and definitely needs accessorizing.
It is full print though, unlike many similarly shaped Barbie dresses.

It's also really nicely made, all hemmed and finished on all sides. 

Spectra's shoes are another reused mould. These are her Dot Dead Gorgeous shoes only this time they're in a really nice pewter colour. I know they look black in photos, but they're aren't. They're slightly opaque and a really dark grey.

I'm in love with this Spectra.. seriously.

Gigi Grant

I always found Gigi's pinkness a little disappointing, I mean, there really was no reason the genie should be pink but Mattel found a way... they always find a way.
However, her body sculpt is just SO cool and her hands are honestly terrifying and my favourite MH hand sculpt ever.
Also she has such a sweet face.

But omg those hands...

Her Maul doll caught my eye for two big reasons.

First, her orange hair. I LOVE the colour orange and it's not used nearly enough in doll lines damnit. Even Howleen lost her orange hair after only one release! So I am DELIGHTED by orange hair here.

second, a MAXI DRESS! Floor length dresses on fashion dolls is something you just don't see outside of princesses in this day and age. Maxi dresses, even when they've been fashionable, just haven't been put on fashion dolls since the 70s. Fashion dolls almost always have SHORT skirts and Monster High particularly is a bit notorious for having all the short skirts.

So Maxi dresses, they're unique, they're unusual, they are absolutely delightful!

Gigi has her huuuuge eyes in pale green, her makeup this time around is pale blue and a muted pink that complements her skin tone very well.
Her upturned worried eyebrows are a dark brownish orange as are her freckles and her lips are a slightly orangey pink that looks very natural with her skin colour. I like to think of this as almost a "nude" shade for Gigi.

Her hair is a sort of carrot colour. Not as bright orange as original release Howleen but just a touch too orange to be totally natural redhead looking. (it's close though, it's about the shade of orange used for redheaded dolls)

Her original doll had orange in her hair as well, but it was a darker more muddied orange, a sort of natural "ginger" that blended with the dark pink.

It's styled with a small piece at the front tied back out of the face and holding the rest down. I'm sure there's a name for this style but I don't know... hair.. not.. knowledgeable. 

Maul Gigi's hair is much brighter, and I LOVE it.

The under layer of the hair has pale blue and bright pink streaks through it.

Now i've seen photos online that claim some Gigi's done have the pink, which is interesting.
I kinda like the pink in this case, it blends nicely with the orange.

It's a very unusual combination of colours though, blue and orange? you don't see that much. Certainly MH has never done this before and I am so happy when Mattel do things that are a bit different from the usual "pink, purple, pastel tone" safe zone MH often falls into.

Love me some bright colours.

Gigi's maxi dress has a lot going in. It's yellow, black, pink, teal, purple, white, orange... There are scorpions, skullettes, diamonds and stripes.
There's just so much happening and I love it.

It's a strapless floor length dress that is held up with dolly boob tape (plastic rubbery stuff sewn into the top part of the bodice that clings to the doll body) and it clings to all her curves. It's made of stretchy fabric and the cut really shows off Gigi's tattoo/henna.

Her shoes are a reused sculpt. They're Gigi's New Scaremester shoes, only instead of gold this time they're in a sort of aqua colour.

They are a freaking cool sculpt though. Look at the scorpion! omg yes!

She hasn't got earrings, none of the dolls have earrings which is a shame but not surprising for a budget release.

Gigi's half bag is from M&H, cute. Gosh I wish these were full bags.

Clawdeen Wolf

Finally Clawdeen.

I LOVE Clawdeen, all clawdeens. I am a wee bit obsessed with this ghoul. Why? Because she always looks SO different in every release. She's not one for subtle makeup tweaks, oh no, Clawdeen gets crazy hair colours, even crazier lipstick and some really fun outfit pieces.

My Clawdeen has slight wonk, but to be fair, finding 5/5 dolls in a big pack without any huge defects is a bit of an ask.
The wonk isn't actually that bad to the naked eye, you just tilt her head a bit and it's fine lol.

So many of my dolls stand with their heads forever tilted.

She also, like Draculaura, has super stiff elbows that mean her arms don't like to bend. Instead the whole lower arms pops out of the socket. Argh.

So, Clawdeen has acid green lips which is a bold look for her, and this crazy bob that's half "Clawdeen neon green" (a colour she often sports) and half pale purple.
The purple in her hair is closer to the purple of her Roller Maze doll and not her usual vivid imperial purple tone.

Her makeup is quite unusual for a Clawdeen doll too. Usually Clawdeen has quite bold makeup, bright or dark colours, golds, blacks, greens and purples. But here she has very soft quite "girly" makeup. A pale baby pink on the lids, a layer of pale blue and then a very subtle purple tint above that.
This is makeup i'd expect to see more on Draculaura, but it's actually quite refreshing to see such soft colours on Clawdeen. Particularly as they contrast so sharply with that very OTT hair and lip colour.

Monsterista's Clawdeen's hair of course reminded me of Dawn of the Dance and Scaremester Clawdeen.
She has the same half and half green/purple hair as Scaremester, though the combo is bolder with the bangs and the very obvious line dividing the colours down the middle.

Unlike these other two Clawdeen's, Monsterista's Clawdeen has NO brown at all in her hair. It's completely half purple, half green.
I like that. I honestly never understood WHY Dawn of the Dance particularly had this random brown streak at the back. Did she miss that bit when she was dying it? Couldn't she reach or something?

Clawdeen's dress is a quite plain black dress with a high collar and a panel of shimmery fabric down the centre. I'm not sure what the pattern is, it just looks like splotches in green, blue and purple. I dunno.

The cut of the dress is very retro to me, it looks like the sort of simple short dress you'd see in the 1960s.

She also has a blue belt, or rather it's two belts moulded as one piece.
The blue colour is a bit odd, yeah she has blue in the panel on her dress and a teeny bit on her eyeshadow but it does feel like a bit of a random colour to throw on in there. Green or purple would have blended better I feel.

She has dark purple boots, they're very cool but not very "clawdeen" as there's no spikes. Are these a reused sculpt? I don't recognize them but that doesn't mean a lot.

The boots add to the 60s vibe of this doll. High boots, short gogo dress, bob haircut? She's totally rocking some vintage styles and I am LOVING it.

With the rock hard gloop rinsed out, her hair is far more attractive. The rooting is a little iffy in places, but it always is when they do a short over gelled style. At least no big chunks of hair came out, that's happened to me before rinsing gloop from rock hard helmet haired dolls. Scary.

Clawdeen's bag is for 13. Again, why couldn't these be full bags? argh.

Final thoughts:

I love this set. And yeah, I did dig through my box o stuff and add a few little accessories.

Ula got a jacket that tied into her blue eye makeup

Clawdeen got a retro white jacket and a green belt... and a headband to hide the thin spots in her hair line.

Billy is perfect as is.

Gigi just got some bracelets and a Bratz necklace to pull her outfit together.

Spectra got some glasses to hold all that overrooted hair back and a leather jacket that lifted her pretty but kinda bland outfit to another level.

But what do I think of this set? Honestly? I LOVE it. There's not a single doll here who feels like an afterthought, not one I wouldn't want to keep and for a multipack that is seriously rare.

Draculaura is so different to any other Draculaura.
Clawdeen has freaking cool hair, unusual makeup and a super cute vintage vibe to her that no other Clawdeen has.
Billy has a unique body
Gigi has this beautiful dress and amazingly vivid hair that's so attractive.
And Spectra is, like Draculaura, SO different to other Spectra's with that amazing hair colour.

They're an incredible bunch and though not without their flaws, they're absolutely gorgeous.

I'm so pleased to have gotten this set, it's one of the better multipacks Mattel have ever done. The outfits are all nice, there's some super cool shoes even if some are reused sculpts, and each character is so unique and different to their other doll releases they're worth having for that variety alone.

So often with MH they release "yet another Draculaura" or "yet another Spectra" and they all look very much of a muchness. Similar hair colours, styles, makeup choices. It gets a little hard to be overly excited by yet another slight variation on the same theme. Here they really changed things up and it's glorious. It's worked really well and the characters still look like themselves, but different at the same time.
It's like mirror universe MH, only without the goatees and crop tops.

So... is this Spectra as good as Getting Ghostly who scored a rare perfect score from me?
oh gosh...

she's not quite as pouty, but I can't stop touching her hair. (which makes me sound SO creepy)
Nghhh..

I'm gonna have to put her in the number 2 spot, alongside my ghouls night out Spectra and her gorgeous dark makeup and hair.

Damn I love Spectra.

ahem.

So let's see.. score time

As a whole, i'd give this pack a solid 9/10. Some quality issues here and there. Clawdeen has some thin spots and the stiff arms are super annoying. I'd also like to have seen some accessories. A bracelet here or there, a pair of earrings on the dolls with their hair back (Gigi and Billy), just those teeny details that could elevate the dolls to a full cohesive look.

But for a multipack and given the constraints of multipacks and price points, a damn good set and well worth the hassle getting.
again, HUGE thank you to Heather for sending them, I owe you girl!

As individual dolls how would I rank them?

Draculaura: I really like her. I would have liked slightly more with her outfit, some more interesting shoes perhaps, a necklace or bracelet or something, but I love her hair colour and her faceup is simple but super cute. She gets 8/10 stiff elbows.

Invisibilly: I prefer his original release, mostly because well.. he has plugs in his ears, longish hair and a rather cute outfit. This Billy has a cool body but clear plastic has the problem of showing all the inner workings which rather ruin the aesthetic. His shirt is nice and his boots are AWESOME but his trousers are made of icky feeling fabric and I don't like that. They feel cheap.
He gets 7/10 extra nipples.

Spectra: The HAIR! it's so thick, and actually that's a bit of a problem because it looks and feels like it should be in a style, not just down like that. It doesn't quite sit right because there's too much hair in the plugs, there's just SOOO MUCH of it. But it's such a pretty colour and can I really moan about "too much" hair? Her faceup is nice, it's nothing omg special but it's nice. Her biggest selling point is that hair. Her dress is kinda blah, boring but her shoes look really nice in the dark grey colour, arguably nicer here than they did in their first purple version. I just wish her outfit was more well... interesting. She's very clearly a "budget" doll but just a little jacket maybe, something to make her outfit less bland. She gets 8/10 over full hair plugs.

Gigi: I like this Gigi. I think I actually like her better than her original release. I don't own any other Gigi dolls, they just didn't quite appeal (scaremester honestly looks to me like she forgot to put her pants on that day and just went to school anyway)
I think she's really pretty with her hair down, the predominantly orange hair delights me and her maxi dress is freaking cool and SO unusual to see on a modern fashion doll.
Also I love those shoes. Because I don't own any other Gigi's, I don't already have a pair of those awesome scorpion shoes so yay! Glad they picked some super cool shoes for her, because they didn't have to. I mean, they're hidden under her dress anyway. But it's nice they did, because they're awesome.
My only real problem with this Gigi is that she doesn't really scream "genie" like her signature doll does but then again, how many of the other characters scream whatever their monster type is?
I think she's a cool design, love those hands, love her body details, love her sweet sad little face. This version of her is just all the better for having such bright hair and such a cool outfit.
 She gets a solid 9.5/10 70s stylings. She's totally rocking the 70s look, but needed some bracelets.

Clawdeen: Clawdeen... I like Clawdeen. Do I love her? not so sure.
I think her hair is cool, I think her lip colour is a lot of fun and I enjoy the 60s vibe to her outfit, but she doesn't quite feel like "Clawdeen". She's like Clawdeen's vintage obsessed cousin or something, which is cool, part of why I like Clawdeen so much is her versatility, but I think it's a shame she didn't have more of her "thematics" featured in her outfit. No spikes, no obvious animal print. Her boots are really cute boots, but for MH boots they're a little bit dull. They haven't got any thematic detail, nothing that feels character specific and it always disappoints me when MH shoes are plain. Yeah it makes them more versatile, but I love picking out the references in the shoes and outfit prints.
With her hair rinsed out she is so adorable, I do enjoy her overall "look" but I think there are Clawdeens I like better.
So for that reason and that reason alone, she has to get only 8/10 acidic lip glosses.


Put together though, they make for a really damn good 5 pack. A 5 pack with 5 great dolls? I mean come on! How often does that happen? There's almost always one dud! The slap dash afterthought. Not here though.

Such a shame Mattel didn't give this a wider distribution, though perhaps we should be blaming the stores not Mattel for this. 5 packs are a hard sell, they're expensive to ship, they're expensive to sell and they take up massive amounts of shelf space. They're just flat out impractical. I think that's why this set didn't get a chance, and it's a real shame because it's arguably the best 5 pack Mattel have ever done for Monster High.